Anthony Leiserowitz, PhD

Director

Anthony Leiserowitz is an expert on American and international public opinion on global warming, including public perception of climate change risks, support and opposition for climate policies, and willingness to make individual behavioral change. His research investigates the psychological, cultural, political, and geographic factors that drive public environmental perception and behavior. He has conducted survey, experimental, and field research at scales ranging from the global to the local, including international studies, the United States, individual states (Alaska and Florida), municipalities (New York City), and with the Inupiaq Eskimo of Northwest Alaska. He also recently conducted the first empirical assessment of worldwide public values, attitudes, and behaviors regarding global sustainability, including environmental protection, economic growth, and human development. He has served as a consultant to the John F. Kennedy School of Government (Harvard University), the United Nations Development Program, the Gallup World Poll, the Global Roundtable on Climate Change at the Earth Institute (Columbia University), and the World Economic Forum.

Lisa Fernandez

Assistant Director

Lisa coordinates program management and operations, contributes to strategic direction, and builds a sense of community for program students, staff and associates.  Previously, she worked in urban environmental conservation and sustainable development in the US and Latin America. She has served as a consultant to the United Nations Development Programme, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the World Bank. She was a Fellow at the World Wildlife Fund-USA and a City Planner implementing solid waste prevention policy for the City of New York. Her most recent publications are Toward a New Consciousness:  Values to Sustain Human and Natural Communities and Institutionalizing Sustainability in Higher Education.  She serves on the boards of the East Coast Greenway Alliance and the Farmington Canal Rail-to-Trail Association and holds an appointment on the Connecticut Greenways Council.

Geoff Feinberg

Research Director

Geoff joined the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication in 2012. Prior to this, he was a vice president at GfK North America, where he specialized in public opinion, thought leadership, social marketing, and strategic communications research. At GfK, Geoff co-founded and was the GfK director of the Associated Press-GfK Poll, which covers a range of current political and social topics and is one of the most widely reported media polls in the world, reaching upwards of an estimated two billion people monthly. He was also a chief research advisor for the Meth Project, a philanthropic organization devoted to reducing methamphetamine use among teens. In 2011, it was ranked by Barron’s Magazine as the third-most effective philanthropy in the world. In the environmental arena, Geoff served as research consultant to The Sustaining Family Forests Initiative. He has also conducted national polls on environmental topics for Yale and Stanford.

Peter D. Howe

Post-Doctoral Fellow

Peter's research focuses on the interface of human perception and cognition with vulnerability to climate change and natural hazards.  He is also interested in integrating geospatial analytic methods into research on environmental perception and behavior.  His doctoral research, supported by the National Science Foundation, examined the role of individual climate experience in perceptions and beliefs about global warming.  He has also been involved in research projects focusing on local greenhouse gas emissions modeling and mitigation, individual mitigation behavior, and community vulnerability assessment and planning.  Peter has a PhD and MS in Geography from Penn State University, and a BA in Political Science and BS in Geography from Arizona State University.

Sander Van Der Linden

Visiting Research Associate

Sander is currently pursuing a PhD in environmental psychology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and joined the YPCCC in 2012 as a visiting research scholar. His doctoral work is supported by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.  As part of his PhD, Sander is conducting a nationally representative study on public climate change perceptions and behaviours in the United Kingdom. He is particularly interested in how different psychological constructs (e.g. emotions, norms,  attitudes, knowledge etc) are causally interrelated and explain and predict important climate change mitigation intentions and behaviours. In addition, his research explores how models of behaviour can be more effectively used to guide public climate change communication. Sander's research has been published in psychological journals and edited volumes and he has been invited to present his models on risk perception, communication and behavioural change at large international conferences. Before coming to Yale, Sander lived, studied and worked in England, Northern California and Boston. Originally from the Netherlands, Sander holds a BASc (Hons) degree from the University of Amsterdam (NL) and a MSc degree from Maastricht University (NL), where he specialized in the social psychology of environmental behavior.

Matto Mildenberger

Research Affiliate & Doctoral Candidate

Matto Mildenberger is a PhD student at Yale¹s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.  A political scientist by training, Matto studies how ideology and emotions shape political bargains over climate policy. His work also focuses on the applications of complex systems theory to political science and environmental policy. Matto previously completed an MA (Global Governance) at the University of Waterloo, and an Hon. B.Sc. (Botany and International Relations) at the University of Toronto.

Tien Ming Lee

Post-Doctoral Fellow

Tien Ming Lee is a Post-Doctoral Fellow. His research program centers on understanding the proximate and ultimate drivers of biodiversity loss and environmental degradation. He has assessed the correlates of local and global species extinction risks, addressed the impacts of past and future global land-use and climate change on biodiversity and protected areas, and evaluated the effects of attitudes and behaviors on biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services across multiple scales. Ming's long-term research goal is to develop an innovative and interdisciplinary approach to unravel the underlying social drivers of global conservation issues (including climate change) to inform conservation policies and to optimize conservation efforts, particularly in Asia where it may matter the most in the following decades.

Bonnie Frye Hemphill

Research Assistant

Bonnie is a second-year Masters student at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. She's interested in sharpening the communications of nonprofit advocacy groups working for solutions to climate change, especially for profitable and practical business propositions. Prior to Yale, Bonnie worked for three years in Seattle at the nonprofit Climate Solutions; there she helped grow its Business Leaders for Climate Solutions network from 125 to more than 1000 clean-economy executives and entrepreneurs advocating for stronger climate policies. Bonnie is a native of Cary, NC, holds a BA from Middlebury College in Vermont, and enthusiastically pursues adventures and shenanigans whenever possible – from sledding the Presidential Range to canoeing across the Canadian Arctic, rafting the Grand Canyon, tossing Frisbees, quilting, and jumping into cold bodies of water.

Eric Plunkett

Research Assistant

Eric is a first-year Masters student at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where he studies energy policy and the intersection of business and the environment. He's particularly interested in energy behaviors and how to leverage communications, behavioral science, and market forces to change those behaviors. In other words, he wants to know how to get everyone to turn their darn lights off. Prior to coming to Yale, Eric spent 3.5 years at the Alliance to Save Energy in Washington, DC, where he worked on energy code research, policy, and advocacy. Eric is a proud native of Buffalo, NY (well, the suburbs), and holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania. His goal is to fight for a sustainable, equitable, and prosperous world for all people. When he's not doing that, he's usually playing soccer, hiking, or talking about finishing his screenplay.

Bessie Schwarz

Research Assistant

Bessie Schwarz manages media and outreach analysis for YPCCC. She comes to YPCCC with extensive experience designing, running and winning national and local grassroots campaigns, as the Field Director for Environment Colorado and as the Federal Field Coordinator with Environment America. In these capacities, she has overseen the generation of dozens of press conferences and hundreds of press stories and has helped designed the national and state field strategies for both of these organizations. Since 2009, she has also directed several record-breaking citizen outreach offices across the country, raising grassroots funds and building public support for clean water, clean energy and preservation.

Bessie received her BA from Carleton College where she studied Philosophy and Environmental Studies. After graduating, she joined Green Corps, the field school for environmental organizing, and awarded the Sarah Forslund Scholarship. Bessie developed her love of the environment while visiting the Rocky Mountains growing up.

Jennifer Marlon, PhD.

Associate Research Scientist

Dr. Marlon's research focuses on public perceptions of climate change, climate literacy, and the physical aspects of long-term environmental changes – especially wildfires. Dr. Marlon is co-organizer of a science education and training program called the Dissertation Initiative for the Advancement of Climate Change Research (DISCCRS, pronounced “discourse”), which aims to establish connections among researchers focusing on the scientific and human dimensions of climate change. She holds a PhD and MS in Geography from the University of Oregon, and a BS from the University at Albany, State University of New York.